Egg products for use in food articles may be made on a commercial scale by depositing a liquid egg mixture into a mold or belt and cooking the liquid egg mixture. Egg patties produced by these types of processes tend to have a commercial processing appearance and do not have acceptable organoleptic properties, are not appetizing, and do not have desirable homemade or handmade appearances.
Previous commercial egg patties tended to be dense and lacked the fluffy texture of fresh scrambled eggs. Previous commercial egg patties also differed in color than the bright yellow appearance of fresh eggs. Additionally, previous commercial egg patties lacked the flavor and aroma of fresh scrambled eggs. Therefore, a need exists to improve egg patties to have a light, tender and slightly moist texture; bright yellow appearance; and a flavor and aroma more reminiscent of fresh scrambled eggs.
Those making egg patties for commercial sale and consumption also desire the egg patty to be folded. Folded eggs not only look better and appear larger because of a puffy appearance, they maintain moisture better during reheating than a single layer egg patty. This probably is because the folded egg patty has less surface area from which to lose moisture than a flat, single layer egg product.
Previous to the invention described herein, liquid egg, such as liquid whole egg, would be cooked in a mold and then folded by hand during or just after cooking. Frequently the desired folded egg patty would be folded into thirds. Commercially available liquid whole egg or pasteurized liquid whole egg has not folded well and a good looking tri-folded egg product has been difficult to obtain on a consistent basis without a lot of waste. Moreover, no known apparatus exists to fold cooked egg products on a large scale basis for later freezing and reheating.